The Protection Business

In Iraq there are about 78,000 armed individuals dubbed Concerned Local Citizens (CLCs). Their jobs: to protect their fellow Iraqis, staff checkpoints and help rid the country of terrorists. They're also pulling down a collective $23.4 million monthly, at $10 a day each. Joining the United States to defeat Al Qaeda and assorted insurgents is a noble enough endeavor that carries considerable risk, but it is also a sizable business. And in a country where tribal allegiances are paramount and loyalty to outside entities fluid, the chance to make money and gain power--not national pride--may be the key drivers for the Iraqis' civic activities.

The seven provinces that comprise the U.S. military's Multinational Division--North have about 15,000 CLCs, meaning a monthly payroll of some $4.5 million. Here in troubled Diyala province, U.S. Army commanders work closely with 2,000 to 3,000 CLC members, conferring almost daily in sessions that seem remarkably like corporate meetings. CLC leaders talk mostly about salaries and the number of new members and supplies they need, doggedly trying to expand their resources and extend their reach. They regularly devote time to reporting perceived problems with other CLC outfits and fretting about excesses of rival leaders, who are often of a different tribe.

"They release [apprehended] terrorists after only a few hours," Jasim Taha Dhari Alawsi complains about another CLC leader in a meeting with Capt. Travis Batty of Bravo Company. He adds that once, when he handed over three suspected Al Qaeda operatives to the Americans, he was threatened by a different leader who thought he should have let them go. Worse, that leader wanted Alawsi to split money earmarked for water projects "50-50" with him. Finally, he reports, the man "is in touch with Al Qaeda in Iraq under the blanket."

Batty absorbs all this with equanimity, accustomed to the province's intertribal--and intratribal--jousting. In this area of northern Iraq, near Muqdadiyah, the Mahdawi clan, who are Sunnis, leads the CLCs.  In nearby Qizilja, the Timimi tribe, which is Shia, is in the ascendancy, under the leadership of the powerful Mahdi Hassan Attia, the local mukhtar (magistrate).

Batty suggests a joint meeting at his K-Wal combat outpost. "Can you get the sheiks to all come here so we can all talk together in a safe place?" he patiently asks Alawsi. But by then the man is on to his next request. He wants 10 boxes of ammunition for his CLCs' AK-47 rifles. "We don't have that kind of ammo," Batty responds. "We only get it when we go into a house and confiscate it." Batty and his fellow soldiers of Second Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, use M-4 rifles.

The conversation soon returns to funding. "My brother has three sons who were killed by Al Qaeda," the CLC says. "Do you have some money I can give him?" Again, the answer is no. Next comes the news that a rival CLC leader received $5,000 from the Americans for refurbishing a school, but turned over only $3,000 to the headmaster. "In that case we will give the money directly to the headmaster in future," Batty says.